Everyone knew there would be some gun owners flouting the law that legislators hurriedly passed last April, requiring residents to register all military-style rifles with state police by Dec. 31.

But few thought the figures would be this bad.

By the end of 2013, state police had received 47,916 applications for assault weapons certificates, Lt. Paul Vance said. An additional 2,100 that were incomplete could still come in.

That 50,000 figure could be as little as 15 percent of the rifles classified as assault weapons owned by Connecticut residents, according to estimates by people in the industry, including the Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation. No one has anything close to definitive figures, but the most conservative estimates place the number of unregistered assault weapons well above 50,000, and perhaps as high as 350,000.

I’ll frankly be stunned if as many as 15-percent of citizens registered their arms and magazines. Most of the estimates I’ve seen for “assault weapon” registration hovered around ten-percent, shaded towards the singe-digit side. Standard-capacity magazine registration is thought to be even lower, at somewhere well under five-percent, and perhaps lower than one-percent.

Haar notes that if the Connecticut State Police start attempting to deduce who has firearms that should be registered under the law by using existing background check data, then things could become problematic for the government of the Constitution State.

The problem could explode if Connecticut officials decide to compare the list of people who underwent background checks to buy military-style rifles in the past, to the list of those who registered in 2013. Do they still own those guns? The state might want to know.

“A lot of it is just a question to ask, and I think the firearms unit would be looking at it,” said Mike Lawlor, the state’s top official in criminal justice. “They could send them a letter.”

I suspect that what we’re witnessing is a government and media utterly flummoxed by what to do next.

They rammed their “assault weapons” ban into law using the Sandy Hook incident as an excuse, and expected Connecticut gun owners to cravenly line up to register their liberties with the state for later confiscation… and indeed, some did. The vast majority, however, reacted with the disdain of their forefathers.

Regardless of their political beliefs or party affiliations, the supermajority of Connecticut gun owners are essentially daring the state to try enforce their new “assault weapon” law.

I suspect that the Dannel Malloy’s government knows that it is better off simply pretending that the citizenry has complied with the law. If they start attempting to aggressively enforce this law, then Malloy may trigger a modern day Powder Alarm, and get something other than a strongly-worded letter in return.